Qatar's Hassad Food considers acquiring Brazil poultry assets

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  Andrea Gantz

  Hassad Food of Qatar said it was looking at possible purchases of Brazilian poultry assets.

  From WATTAgNet:
  Hassad Food, the agricultural arm of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, said it was looking at possible purchases of Brazilian poultry assets.
  Hassad Food is also looking to acquire more sugar assets, citing that there are structural problems in both of those industries in Brazil.
  "We have a lot of stuff in our pipeline and Brazil is definitely part of that, not only sugar but also poultry," Youssef Hegazy, vice president for business development at Hassad Food, said on February 25.
  Hegazy did not give the names of the assets in which his company was interested, and said discussions were still in an early stage.
  "We had past discussions and moved to more advanced stages, but nothing materialized then, so now we are in an early stage," he said.
  Hassad Food, wholly owned by the Qatar Investment Authority, was set up in 2008 to boost the Gulf country's food security. The rich desert states of the Gulf, which depend on imports for 80 to 90 percent of their food, have poured cash over the past few years into buying farmland and other agricultural assets abroad.
  Earlier in February, Hassad Food announced that it had acquired a significant minority equity interest in the Oman poultry project A’Saffa.
  On the grains side, Hassad Food acquired farmland in Australia in 2009, focusing its investments there on livestock and grains. It is also looking at grain assets in North America.